The slippery-slope argument goes something like this: If Masterpiece Cakeshop, and its owner, Jack Phillips, can refuse to bake a cake for a gay wedding, what’s to stop him from refusing to bake a wedding cake for two Jews, or an interracial couple, or anyone else for that matter?

There are good reasons to make that argument—I’ve made it myself on many occasions, and it may carry the day when the Supreme Court hears the case next week.

But ultimately, it misses the point: that it’s not Jews or people of color or anyone else who are the targets of these “religious freedom” claims. It’s women and LGBT people. Because at the end of the day, these “religious freedom” claims aren’t about religious freedom. They’re about the Culture War. They’re about sex.

First, if Phillips and his ilk were consistent, they would have plenty of sinful people to turn away from their businesses. In Matthew 5:32, for example, Jesus forbids divorce and says that remarriage is the same as adultery. So why isn’t Phillips turning away the remarried?

Here’s another example. In 1 Corinthians 6:9, one of the seven so-called clobber verses (out of 31,102 in the Bible) that talk about homosexuality, Paul states that “neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor male prostitutes (malakoi) nor homosexual offenders (arsenokoitai) nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God.” Whoever Paul is talking about here—it’s almost certainly not all gay men, and definitely not lesbians, but even if it were—they are placed on the same level as thieves, slanderers, and swindlers. No better and no worse.

And yet, I’m unaware of a single case in which a service provider sought the right to refuse service to a slanderer on the basis of a religious belief. Why?

Nor has Phillips asserted a right to refuse to bake a wedding cake for a Hindu wedding, even though most evangelical Christians believe Hinduism to be a form of idolatry—which is forbidden over 100 times in the Bible, on penalty of death.

In other words, these “religious freedom” claimants are being highly selective about when their conscience compels them to discriminate. Of all of the sins in Scripture, it seems that only those involving sex and gender—contraception, abortion, LGBT people—are the only ones which trigger such claims.

Quite a coincidence, is it not?

Obviously, it is not. These “religious freedom” claims are extensions of the five-decade old Culture War. They are front-line issues in politicized Christianity, not Christianity itself, and are stand-ins for a cultural clash that runs deeper than any individual claim.

The Culture War is a battle about sex, but it is really a battle about what country we are living in: either a Christian nation, with right-wing Christianity as its moral bedrock, or a diverse, secular nation, in which religious claims are respected, but not used as a trump card over the civil rights of others.

After all, the reason I’ve scare-quoted “religious freedom” here is that these kinds of claims are really quite novel. For two centuries, the First Amendment was primarily a shield held up by persecuted religious minorities—Jehovah’s Witnesses, Native Americans—against governmental interference in their religious practice. No third parties were involved; these minorities wanted to practice their religion and be left alone.

To be sure, this history is still marred by Christian domination. The First Amendment didn’t stop Mormon polygamy from being banned, and it didn’t stop the government from seizing lands held to be sacred by Native Americans. It was often used against Catholics as well.

But in principle, the Free Exercise clause of the First Amendment was a shield protecting minority religions from government interference.

Only in the last 20 years has it been used as a sword, allowing a religious individual to discriminate against someone else. In cases like Masterpiece Cakeshop or 2014’s Hobby Lobby, it’s not just the government and the practitioner. It’s the government, the practitioner, and the person the practitioner is harming. That is a crucial, and unprecedented, difference: Today’s “religious freedom” claimants want to abridge the rights of others.

And it’s not a coincidence. Poll data shows that when you scratch a “religious freedom” claimant, what you find underneath is someone who really wants to ban abortion, overturn same-sex marriage, and bring back anti-sodomy laws. These organizations—the Alliance Defending Freedom, the Becket Fund, Liberty Counsel—are fundamentally insincere. They’re not defending our “First Freedom.” They’re fighting the Culture War.

Now, having followed this issue for many years, I know that millions of conservative Christians sincerely believe their religion to be under attack. But the data doesn’t lie. Ultimately, Christian conservatives don’t just want to be left alone to practice their religion in peace. Ultimately, they want to impose their religious beliefs on others. They want to win the Culture War and ban the stuff they don’t like.

That’s why the slippery-slope argument is off point. We shouldn’t be asking “what’s to stop this person from turning away Jews?” We should be asking “why is it that the only people this person wants to turn away are women and gays?” Because that’s what reveals this campaign for what it is.

Now, two important caveats.

First—and this is a historical point I wish we could all keep in mind—this kind of religious freedom claim was, in fact, used against African Americans during the 1960s and 1970s. Bob Jones University, for example, argued that it had a First Amendment right to refuse admission to black students (and, later, to segregate them in special housing).

And on a local level, “religious freedom” was offered as a pretext by restauranteurs and hoteliers to deny service to blacks. God separated the races on different continents, evangelicals said in the 1950s, and we must not interfere with His plan.

The Bob Jones case went all the way to the Supreme Court—the university lost, and lost their tax-exempt status—and historian Randall Balmer has shown that it, not Roe v. Wade, was the chief motivation behind the formation of the “New Christian Right,” the term political scientists use to describe the Christian political movement that was born in the 1970s. (Prior to the Sexual Revolution, most evangelicals thought that Christians should stay out of the dirty business of politics. Times have changed.)

So it’s not as though the slippery slope isn’t true. It was true quite recently, in fact. The modern “religious freedom” movement was born in segregation.

It’s also true that, when pressed, “religious freedom” activists admit that the slippery slope is accurate in principle. In one memorable exchange from 2014, Congressman Jerrold Nadler asked the Liberty Counsel’s Mat Staver why, under the laws Staver favored—which have now become law in 22 states—a wedding photographer couldn’t refuse service to Jews.

After trying to weasel out of the question—“I think it wouldn’t be something she wouldn’t object to,” he stammered—Staver admitted that, yes, “She would have an issue there—a violation potential in that case.”

So, in principle, the slippery-slope argument is spot-on, and, as mentioned earlier, it may well be decisive at the Supreme Court. For the rule of law to mean something, people can’t pick which laws they wish to obey.

Yet I want to conclude with Staver’s initial response: “I think it wouldn’t be something she wouldn’t object to.” That may well be true. Anti-Semitism has surged during the Trump administration, but probably Staver’s clients—including the Kentucky Clerk Kim Davis, now a hero of the New Christian Right—wouldn’t turn Jews away. That’s not what they’re worried about.

No—what they’re worried about are women and gays; sex and gender; the Culture War and the Christian Nation. And they want to win. Don’t let claims of “religious freedom” fool you.

No it didn't. It went to the Muslims in question being allowed to refuse to serve to serve something against their religion, so why can't this man refuse to decorate a cake that is against his?

That's a false equivalency. The religious prohibition involving pork and alcohol is to nature of the food, not to the orientation of the customer. There are lots of prohibitions that go to certain kinds of foods. Jews, for example, also shy away from pork. Catholics used to prohibit meat on Fridays. These prohibitions indict the product, they do not indict the person.

No it didn't. It went to the Muslims in question being allowed to refuse to serve to serve something against their religion, so why can't this man refuse to decorate a cake that is against his?

That's a false equivalency. The religious prohibition involving pork and alcohol is to nature of the food, not to the orientation of the customer. There are lots of prohibitions that go to certain kinds of foods. Jews, for example, also shy away from pork. Catholics used to prohibit meat on Fridays. These prohibitions indict the product, they do not indict the person.

No it didn't. It went to the Muslims in question being allowed to refuse to serve to serve something against their religion, so why can't this man refuse to decorate a cake that is against his?

That's a false equivalency. The religious prohibition involving pork and alcohol is to nature of the food, not to the orientation of the customer. There are lots of prohibitions that go to certain kinds of foods. Jews, for example, also shy away from pork. Catholics used to prohibit meat on Fridays. These prohibitions indict the product, they do not indict the person.

That is, of course, factually correct. It is also correct to say that the religious prohibition involves the actual touching of, say pork or alcoholic products...which begs the question: "Why would a devout Muslim or Jew apply for employment in an establishment where, bacon, pork sausages and Olde Griuntfuttock's XXXX ale are permanently on legal sale?

Is it not a question of "whose rights are supreme" - a devout Muslim or Jew whose religious beliefs would be compromised by handling or selling pork or booze, or an Anglican, Catholic, Baptist or Methodist whose religious beliefs entitled him to buy and enjoy them?

It's a consistent policy, but going to who, not what, is at issue. Even if one points to the cake and what's written on it, the underlying hostility goes to the person behind the idea and not the idea itself.

Jews and Muslims frown on pork because they feel it is not a proper food. Carry that over: is anyone saying that a wedding cake is not a proper food? No...the hostility is to the person buying the cake.

It's a consistent policy, but going to who, not what, is at issue. Even if one points to the cake and what's written on it, the underlying hostility goes to the person behind the idea and not the idea itself.

Jews and Muslims frown on pork because they feel it is not a proper food. Carry that over: is anyone saying that a wedding cake is not a proper food? No...the hostility is to the person buying the cake.

It's a consistent policy, but going to who, not what, is at issue. Even if one points to the cake and what's written on it, the underlying hostility goes to the person behind the idea and not the idea itself.

Jews and Muslims frown on pork because they feel it is not a proper food. Carry that over: is anyone saying that a wedding cake is not a proper food? No...the hostility is to the person buying the cake.

How is a traditional cake a consistant policy?

First you have to define what is traditional?

A church wedding?

The issue isn't the cake, but the refusal to sell the cake to homosexuals.

I think you and I have to grant that tommy is pursuing a consistent policy. The problem is, it is a policy of homophobia.

Last edited by Original Quill on Sun Dec 10, 2017 5:38 pm; edited 1 time in total

If a DJ/band offered a service to perform at weddings, but a Sikh couple tried to book them under instruction that they play only bangra/Punjabi drum music, and the DJ/band refused the gig because they didn't feel happy/comfortable/willing/able to play that type of wedding/music... would that be discrimination and 'Sikhaphobia' etc...!?

_________________“Truth is ever to be found in the simplicity, and not in the multiplicity and confusion of things.” — Isaac Newton

'The further a society drifts from truth the more it will hate those who speak it.' — George Orwell

If a DJ/band offered a service to perform at weddings, but a Sikh couple tried to book them under instruction that they play only bangra/Punjabi drum music, and the DJ/band refused the gig because they didn't feel happy/comfortable/willing/able to play that type of wedding/music... would that be discrimination and 'Sikhaphobia' etc...!?

Oh dear, someone still fails to grasp consistancy.

What types of music do the Dj band play for a start?

I know exactly where you trying to go with this and I am going to enjoy taking the piss along the way, when it falls completely flat.

What astounds me more than anything. Is the lenghs you go to, in order to make discrimination acceptable.

No it didn't. It went to the Muslims in question being allowed to refuse to serve to serve something against their religion, so why can't this man refuse to decorate a cake that is against his?

There is a difference.No one is being discriminated against by not being sold pork. Refusing to decorate a cake for a gay wedding discriminates against the couple, however. Lord Foul pretty much made this point earlier.

Incidentally, I do think Muslim shopworkers should have to serve pork and as didge said, in event so did the Muslim Council of Britain.

So if I go to a wedding caterer who happens to be moslem, and request a hog roast and bacon sandwiches be provided... they are discriminating against me if they refuse to provide this service...!?

_________________“Truth is ever to be found in the simplicity, and not in the multiplicity and confusion of things.” — Isaac Newton

'The further a society drifts from truth the more it will hate those who speak it.' — George Orwell

No it didn't. It went to the Muslims in question being allowed to refuse to serve to serve something against their religion, so why can't this man refuse to decorate a cake that is against his?

There is a difference.

No one is being discriminated against by not being sold pork. Refusing to decorate a cake for a gay wedding discriminates against the couple, however. Lord Foul pretty much made this point earlier.

Incidentally, I do think Muslim shopworkers should have to serve pork and as didge said, in event so did the Muslim Council of Britain.

They can make a film about you

We can call it "snowflake elizel and the ever shifting goal posts"

_________________“Sometimes people hold a core belief that is very strong. When they are presented with evidence that works against that belief, the new evidence cannot be accepted. It would create a feeling that is extremely uncomfortable, called cognitive dissonance. And because it is so important to protect the core belief, they will rationalize,ignore and even deny anything that doesn't fit in with the core belief."

There is a difference.No one is being discriminated against by not being sold pork. Refusing to decorate a cake for a gay wedding discriminates against the couple, however. Lord Foul pretty much made this point earlier.

Incidentally, I do think Muslim shopworkers should have to serve pork and as didge said, in event so did the Muslim Council of Britain.

So if I go to a wedding caterer who happens to be moslem, and request a hog roast and bacon sandwiches be provided... they are discriminating against me if they refuse to provide this service...!?

Not the same thing at all

It's "different" when they do it

_________________“Sometimes people hold a core belief that is very strong. When they are presented with evidence that works against that belief, the new evidence cannot be accepted. It would create a feeling that is extremely uncomfortable, called cognitive dissonance. And because it is so important to protect the core belief, they will rationalize,ignore and even deny anything that doesn't fit in with the core belief."

There is a difference.No one is being discriminated against by not being sold pork. Refusing to decorate a cake for a gay wedding discriminates against the couple, however. Lord Foul pretty much made this point earlier.

Incidentally, I do think Muslim shopworkers should have to serve pork and as didge said, in event so did the Muslim Council of Britain.

So if I go to a wedding caterer who happens to be moslem, and request a hog roast and bacon sandwiches be provided... they are discriminating against me if they refuse to provide this service...!?

Oh dear, I see Tommy is failing to grasp this.

I am sure such a caterer would either be happy to or have a policy that shows they do not cater alcohol or pork.

Tommy Monk wrote:If I go to a supermarket, and want to buy meat that has not been slaughtered under any religious ritual... then this service must be provided... or I am being discriminated against...!?

Tommy Monk wrote:If I go to a supermarket, and want to buy meat that has not been slaughtered under any religious ritual... then this service must be provided... or I am being discriminated against...!?

You mean if you were like a serious atheist or something??

_________________“Sometimes people hold a core belief that is very strong. When they are presented with evidence that works against that belief, the new evidence cannot be accepted. It would create a feeling that is extremely uncomfortable, called cognitive dissonance. And because it is so important to protect the core belief, they will rationalize,ignore and even deny anything that doesn't fit in with the core belief."

Didge... the cake man was happy to provide a wedding cake (in the traditional style) for the gays... they were not refused service because they were gay... just the cake man didn't do the style that was requested...

_________________“Truth is ever to be found in the simplicity, and not in the multiplicity and confusion of things.” — Isaac Newton

'The further a society drifts from truth the more it will hate those who speak it.' — George Orwell

Tommy Monk wrote:Didge... the cake man was happy to provide a wedding cake (in the traditional style) for the gays... they were not refused service because they were gay... just the cake man didn't do the style that was requested...

No he refused to make a wedding cake for them.

And gays have the same type of traditional wedding cakes as everyone else.

Like everyone else they have variations on the message. That is, if they even have a message on theirs.

Tommy Monk wrote:Didge... the cake man was happy to provide a wedding cake (in the traditional style) for the gays... they were not refused service because they were gay... just the cake man didn't do the style that was requested...

...because they were gay. It's homophobic discrimination...could anything be simpler?

If a DJ/band offered a service to perform at weddings, but a Sikh couple tried to book them under instruction that they play only bangra/Punjabi drum music, and the DJ/band refused the gig because they didn't feel happy/comfortable/willing/able to play that type of wedding/music... would that be discrimination and 'Sikhaphobia' etc...!?

A DJ would play whatever he's paid to play. If he doesn't, he's in the wrong job.

Your question has been answered. You don't like my answer. I'm cool with that. I don't want the government to force you to agree with me either.

The question was would you accept a business refusing to decorate a cake for the wedding of a mixed race couple.

You haven't answered that at all.

If you can't no worries, I understand.

I accept a business refusing to serve someone for whatever reason they like. I think that has been very clear throughout this thread. Is there any more confusion about how I don't believe in using force to make one man serve another?

_________________Disobedience is the true foundation of liberty. The obedient must be slaves.